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Pedagogical Affordances of Mobile Web 2.0 Smartphones give you wings: Pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0 Thomas Cochrane Te Puno Ako (Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation), Unitec Roger Bateman Product Design, Unitec Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (mlearning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile Web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0 tools are evaluated, and student usage and feedback is outlined via an interactive multimedia timeline (using YouTube videos) illustrating how these mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical affordances have transformed pedagogy and facilitated student engagement in a variety of course contexts. A rubric for evaluating appropriate smartphone choices is provided, and a model for implementing mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical integration is presented. Keywords: mlearning, mobile Web 2.0. Introduction Mlearning is a rapidly developing paradigm driven by exponential changes in the capabilities of mobile technologies and their integration with Web 2.0 social software. Worldwide marketshare of mobile devices is increasing, eclipsing traditional computer ownership. There are over four billion cellphone users worldwide, while there are only around 800 million computer owners. The smartphone market is set to exceed computer users by 2014 when the smartphone market is expected to reach 30% of the worldwide cellphone market (Hendery, 2009). When this research project began in 2006, neither the iPhone or low cost 3G netbooks existed, the iTunes Store was unavailable in New Zealand, wireless connectivity speeds were limited to first generation 3G (UMTS or CDMA) with limited coverage available, and wifi was limited to 54Mbps. The mobile Internet was limited to WAP enabled sites, Google’s Mobile suite of tools were immature, media-rich smartphone applications required Java implementation across a wide range of different interfaces, and Prensky’s assertion for education: “What can you learn from a cell phone? Almost anything!” (2005) appeared to many educators to be a hopeful fairytale. Now in 2009, over five billion songs and 1.5 billion iPhone applications (within a year of the opening of the iTunes App Store, with a catalogue of over 65000 applications available) have been downloaded from the iTunes store. The majority of our students now own at least a cameraphone capable of; mobile blogging, recording and uploading video to YouTube, email, and browsing the Internet. Smartphones have matured into feature-rich miniature multimedia computers, including features such as; HSPA connectivity (3.6Mbps and higher wireless mobile broadband connectivity), built-in virtual or physical keyboards for easy text entry, a high-resolution digital still and video camera, a GPS, high capacity memory storage (now 8Gb and higher is standard), high resolution touchscreen user interfaces, and a wide variety of pre-installed and downloadable applications that integrate with Web 2.0 social software. The research overviewed herein implements and investigates the application of wireless mobile devices (WMDs) in a variety of tertiary education courses within New Zealand. The author is part of Te Puno Ako (formerly the Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation team) at Unitec, and as such is ideally situated at Unitec to promote and research the potential of WMDs to enhance the delivery of courses and student learning. The research covers a series of mobile Web 2.0 project implementations within courses from different schools at Unitec between 2007 and 2009, with the aim of informing an institutional Proceedings ascilite Auckland 2009: Full paper: Cochrane and Bateman 142 mlearning strategy. The project developed an intentional Community Of Practice (COP) model for supporting new technology integration, pedagogical development, and institutional change. Beginning with a small selection of early adopter trials, the results of the research are now informing a wider integration of wireless mobile computing. Trials/pilots were established to establish support for the concept from tutors and students at Unitec. The initial proof-of-concept trials have lead to the integration of the mlearning project model into the newly developed institutional elearning strategy. The trials played an important role in exploring the skills and confidence of academic staff in utilizing the technology before full implementation within their courses. The research follows a journey of discovery for the key participants (including the researcher and the lecturers involved), that has been recorded in over thirty research outputs during the past four years. Background Why MLearning? The key drivers are the enhancement of teaching and learning, facilitating student-centred social constructivist pedagogies. The goal is the establishment of social constructivism (in its various emergent forms) as the strategic pedagogy underpinning a tertiary institution’s teaching and learning environment. The growing popularity of a relatively new social Learning Management System (LMS – Moodle) and the availability of interactive, easy to use Web 2.0 social software tools make this strategy timely. Equitable access to these tools is critical. Therefore the provision of some form of appropriate wireless mobile computing device (WMD) for all students and teaching staff is required, which may take the form of either a netbook, a laptop, or a smartphone depending upon what is appropriate for each course of study. Key benefits of mlearning for tertiary education include: • Exploring innovative teaching and learning practices. • Enabling the embodiment of ‘authentic learning’ – i.e. facilitating anywhere, anytime student-centred learning. • Engaging students with the affordances of mobile Web 2.0 technologies: connectivity, mobility, geolocation, social networking, personal PODCasting and VODCasting etc… • Bridging the ‘digital divide’ by providing access to learning contexts and user content creation tools that are affordable and increasingly owned by students. • Moving from a model of fixed dedicated general computing to a mobile wireless computing paradigm that turns any space into a potential learning space. Mobile Web 2.0 MLearning (Mobile learning) technologies provide the ability to engage in learning conversations between students and lecturers, between student peers, students and subject experts, and students and authentic environments within any context. It is the potential for mobile learning to bridge pedagogically designed learning contexts, facilitate learner generated contexts, and content (both personal and collaborative), while providing personalisation and ubiquitous social connectedness, that sets it apart from more traditional learning environments. Mobile learning, as defined in this paper, involves the use of wireless enabled mobile digital devices (wireless mobile devices or WMDs) within and between pedagogically designed learning environments or contexts. Mobile Web 2.0 tools are used to facilitate this (Web 2.0 services that are formatted for use with mobile devices). Web 2.0 (O'Reilly, 2005), or ‘social software’ tools, share many synergies with social constructivist learning pedagogies. Many educators have harnessed Web 2.0 tools for creating engaging student-centred learning environments. This appropriation of Web 2.0 tools within a social constructivist pedagogy facilitates what has been termed “pedagogy 2.0” (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). From an activity theory perspective, WMDs are the tools that mediate a wide range of learning activities and facilitate collaborative learning environments (Uden, 2007). The research project The research project involved a series of reflective action research projects (2007 to 2009) using WMDs to harness the potential of current and emerging social constructivist e-learning tools. The educational contexts included: the Diploma of Landscape Design, Bachelor of Product design, Diploma of Contemporary Music, Bachelor of Architecture, and Bachelor of Performing Arts. An explicit social constructivist pedagogy underpins each project. This research project is interested in appropriating the Proceedings ascilite Auckland 2009: Full paper: Cochrane and Bateman 143 benefits of Web 2.0 and pedagogy 2.0 anywhere anytime using mobile Web 2.0 and wireless mobile devices (or WMDs), in particular WiFi (wireless ethernet) and 3G (third generation mobile 'broadband') enabled smartphones, and 3G enabled netbooks. Figure 1 below is a concept map developed to graphically illustrate the links between multiple learning contexts, and the Web 2.0 technologies that the smartphones afford. The research also provides a unique window into the journey of the participants and the researcher via authentic video reflections captured along the course of the research and made available on YouTube and various Web 2.0 social software sites. These provide rich media snapshots recording the story of the key participants longitudinally throughout the research. Figure 1: Mobile Web 2.0 concept map. Methodology MLearning projects 2006 to 2009 The research methodology is outlined in detail in previous papers (Cochrane, 2006, 2007, 2008), included here is a brief summary to situate this paper within the overall research project. The research projects were collaborative projects between the researcher (as the technology steward), the course lecturers and their students. Research
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